Wednesday, August 24, 2005

Just came by way of Asst. Atlas' blog. Two quick questions:

1) Of the two spec scripts a writer should present when seeking an agent, can one be an original pilot?

2) Do you happen to know if Entourage is a good show to spec nowadays?

One can be a spec pilot, but your odds of impressing the hell out of people with two straight kickass spec episodes are much better. It is freakin' hard to write a brilliant pilot. When I read a spec Alias, I'm thinking about Jennifer Garner in a tight dress. When I read your spec pilot (call it AKA), I don't know who's in the tight dress. Jennifer Tilly? Roseanne Barr? You see the problem. In a spec episode you're writing for known characters. A loosely written line of dialog will still get the actor's usual treatment. In a spec pilot you have to create the characters. A loosely written line of dialog will come off flat.

My guess is Entourage is an excellent spec right now. It's not too tightly serialized, so you can slip an episode into the chronology. And there is probably no one in L.A. who hasn't seen at least one episode. Most agents will have watched all the episodes. So go for it.

Labels: spec pilots

10:17 PM

1 Comments:

Alex, I had to come back to this one. I read it over a week ago and it stuck in my head. You see, I haven't even though of ever writing a spec script for any television show until I saw this post. Most of my aspirations have been feature screenplays. Entourage is a show I watch regularly and believe I could write a good, solid spec script for. The only thing is I don't know where to start. What's the page length for a half hour cable show? If I wanted to send it to HBO for possible consideration for future seasons where do I begin or do I just use it as as a sample to find an agent? Do I write a couple to show them that I am not a one hit wonder? Any tips?

Any help would be, well, helpful...

By  William, at 3:48 PM  

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